Attacker’s sentence reflects ‘premeditation’ against uniformed army officer

An Army officer who was repeatedly stabbed near a barracks in Kent has said his attacker’s life sentence reflects the “premeditation and planning involved” against him wearing British military uniform.

Anthony Esan was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum term of seven years and 162 days, at Maidstone Crown Court – but will be detained in hospital for as long as necessary – for the knife attack on Lieutenant Colonel Mark Teeton in Sally Port Gardens, near Brompton Barracks, Chatham, on July 23 2024.

Speaking emotionally outside court on Friday, Lt Col Teeton, supported by his wife Eileen, said: “We are immensely indebted to those members of the public, emergency services, air ambulance and NHS who saved my life.

“We welcome the sentence that has been handed to my attacker today as it reflects an incredible bank of evidence gathered by the police and presented by our barrister of the premeditation and planning involved in the attack against myself, an officer wearing British military uniform.

“Knife attacks do not just impact the victim, they impact the families and communities where attacks occur.

“We feel the pain caused by every knife attack that we see on the news, and our thoughts will always be (with) those affected.”

In the lead-up to the stabbing, Esan had bought a set of knives from Argos days earlier and searched online for attacks, including the murder of soldier Lee Rigby, the court had heard.

Forensic psychiatrists told Maidstone Crown Court it is more likely that Esan set out to stab a soldier but that the main driver of his actions was psychosis.

Experts agreed he had schizophrenia at the time of the attack.

Sentencing him on Friday, Mr Justice Picken said: “The attack on Mr Teeton was targeted and deliberate.

“You were looking for a soldier with the intention that that soldier should die, as underlined by the fact you had looked up the killing of Lee Rigby on the internet.”

During his sentencing, the judge said: “The psychotic disorder is part of the context for the attack but it is not the entire context, since the context also includes the fact that you targeted Mr Teeton, and that you did so having carried out searches in relation to other knife attacks, including most notably the killing of Lee Rigby, another soldier.”

The judge said the grudge that Esan held towards the Army worked in tandem, or in combination, with his psychosis.

Mr Justice Picken told Esan he presents a “significant risk” to the public, adding: “You are unlikely ever to be released back into the community where there is a risk of reoccurrence.”

Following his sentencing, the judge said he wanted to commend everyone who came to Lt Col Teeton’s assistance, in particular his wife Eileen Teeton, and praised them both for their “immense courage”.

Esan will be re-admitted and detained at high-security Broadmoor Hospital, where he has already been since October 2024, subject to restrictions.

The judge said he will be detained in hospital “for as long as necessary” and “if and when” it is no longer necessary, Esan will be transferred to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence.

It will be for the Parole Board to decide whether Esan can be released after he serves the minimum term.

During the four-day sentencing, the court heard how Mrs Teeton had rushed to a soldier lying on the ground outside the family home, before realising it was her husband.

She pushed Esan off him before realising that he had a knife and “felt a wave of terror” that she may need to run for her life, but he chose not to go after her.

Mrs Teeton said in her victim impact statement: “I watched horrified by his continued savage attack, and realised it was my husband on the ground and he was carving at his face and neck”.

The prosecution described her actions in pushing Esan away as “remarkable”.

Mrs Teeton added that when visiting her husband in hospital, he asked: “Do the people at work know what he tried to do to me?”

She asked him what the attacker had tried to do, to which he replied: “Cut my head off! Like Lee Rigby.”

Footage shown to the court showed the moment Esan parks up his moped and stops Lt Col Teeton walking home from the barracks at 5.53pm.

He asked the father-of-two if he could use his phone because his moped had broken down and he needed to call someone to come and help, before beginning his attack, the court heard.

More footage from a car showed the attack in the middle of the road with Esan stabbing Lt Col Teeton, who gets up and walks the other way, and Esan going after him and continuing his attack.

Lt Col Teeton, a serving officer in the British Army for 26 years who has been on two tours in Iraq and two tours in Afghanistan, tearfully told the court of being “forever in gratitude” to the “heroes”, including his wife Eileen, who came to his aid that day.

“I still relive the incident in my mind; I actually think it is a blessing that I was unconscious for much of it as it means that I am unable to remember a large part of being attacked,” he said.

“I don’t think I will truly appreciate the courage shown by my wife and strangers to thwart the attack and then the quick thinking of an array of people that helped save my life.”

Lt Col Teeton said he was told by medical staff it was a “miracle” that he survived the attack having been left with a very large wound to the right side of his neck and further stab wounds to the front and back of his chest, front and back of his abdomen, left side of his lower abdomen, right groin, right upper arm and left thigh.

He added: “I did not imagine for a moment that I would be attacked in such a way on the streets of Britain, in a place where I felt safe.”

Esan was born in Nigeria and moved to the UK in 2009, living in the Southwark area of London before the family relocated to Kent in 2022.

The court heard that Esan had made several unsuccessful attempts to join the British Army in the years before his attack, with his first application in 2020.

That same year, he had been referred to mental health services as he appeared to be mentally unwell and reported hearing voices.

The court heard that in January 2023, Esan’s mother had contacted an out-of-hours service concerned that he had knives in his bag.

Expert witness in forensic psychiatry Professor Nigel Blackwood said that when he brought knives back to the family home, that Esan “began to entertain murderous fantasies 18 months before he enacted them”.

Prosecutor Alison Morgan KC had also said Esan had an “interest” in knives, with packaging for two “Rambo” knives later to be recovered from his bedroom.

Since the middle of last year Esan said he felt he was in the film Kingsman, which Ms Morgan described as “profoundly violent”, and a video game called Cyberpunk.

He believed his role was to “deliver and shoot”, the court heard.

Esan has been receiving treatment in Broadmoor Hospital, but Prof Blackwood said he remains psychotic and will have to be treated for the rest of his life.

Esan, of Mooring Road, Rochester, was due to stand trial for the attack and possession of two bladed weapons this month, but instead pleaded guilty to the crimes in January.

On Friday, he was flanked by six staff from Broadmoor alongside a custody guard in the dock.